Raul Berto - Technical and Economic Valuation of Healthcare Building Upgrade

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The research work developed by Paolo Rosato, Carlo Antonio Stival and Raul Berto is part of the broad theme that includes healthcare buildings and, more precisely, those health facilities characterized by a high organizational and technological complexity in performing diagnosis and care services.

A significant share of existing healthcare facilities consists of buildings where a certain lack of homogeneity in layout typology, different construction technologies and various levels of performance in functional adequacy are found. For these reasons, public administrations need to draw up appropriate intervention plans in line with health policy targets. Thus, modernization and renovation projects are predisposed based on relevant priorities, appropriately defined by public health administrations.

Therefore, it is clear that the acknowledgement of the present condition of healthcare facilities, in terms of technical and functional typology, their adaptability to adjustment and modernization actions and transformation-related costs are essential elements for the definition of the aforementioned intervention plans. This is the context of the valuable work developed by the researchers of the University of Trieste.

The research presented in this book develops a consistent, operational methodology to define a framework for a technical and economic evaluation of interventions to be conducted on healthcare buildings and facilities. The recognition of adjustment and modernization interventions depends on peculiar surveys related to operating health facilities comparable with the evaluation subject. Surveys concern the present conditions of facilities, their technological complexity, their functional flexibility and, above all, the costs incurred in renovation interventions. In the proposed methodological approach, these costs derive from specific analysis and a consequent aggregation in categories of homogeneous construction works that characterize various typologies of healthcare facilities. This data is derived, with the precise application of an analytical and comparative evaluation, from the technical documentation available for different healthcare buildings, suitably identified and selected to structure wide, consistent data sets.

In this way, the evaluation of intervention costs obtained through a syntheticcomparative approach will result in line with both the construction market in the healthcare sector and the design reference models that, from time to time, would be considered as project targets.

This research work will enable technical operators and healthcare administrators to use the proposed methodology to evaluate with a more realistic decision-making awareness since the developed analyses will provide an actual benchmark for intervention priorities and a reliable assessment of costs concerning planned interventions.

In conclusion, this work is characterized by a double value. First, the scientific value is highlighted by the innovation inherent in the proposed methodology. Second, a planning tool for the intervention design on existing healthcare building stock is available for a first operative experimentation that could be carried out by each healthcare administration.